Got my first confirmed Family Finder cousin (4th cousin, I think) yesterday evening. We are related on our mutual Holmes family line out of Pike County, Mississippi, with our immigrant ancestor, Elisha Holmes (b. 1773), having come originally to Georgia from Northern Ireland.

We're still working out the details, but this is pretty cool, and this lady contacted me first; I didn't have to go hunting her down.

Neat to know I still have some of that Holmes dna floating around in my body.

This lady, my 5th cousin, has one of our lines (Stovall) traced back to the 17th-century immigrant, who was born in Surrey, England. I did not have that information. There's another obvious benefit I have gotten from the Family Finder test.

She and I may be double 5th cousins, as well, but I still have to confirm that. Her 3rd great grandfather Josiah and my 3rd great grandfather Benjamin were brothers. Both of them married women who had the surname Sumrall, and I suspect they were sisters. If they were, then this lady and I are 5th cousins on two lines.

I think I am on the verge of linking up with another Family Finder match. Of course, a lot depends upon whether I hear from this individual or not. Anyway, we are predicted by FTDNA to be 4th cousins. We share 38.31 cM of autosomal dna, with the longest block being 15.15 cM.

He and I share a surname in our surnames list, and if I am right, we share a 5th great grandfather on that line, which would make us 6th cousins. That's stretching back to a man born in 1723, but we share some dna somehow, and that looks like a firm connection.

Right now I am not sure of the source for the pedigree, since up until I saw this man's gedcom, I could not get this line beyond my 3rd great grandfather. I found the possible connection by searching pedigrees on the internet, to be quite honest. I'm thinking the information is probably pretty good, since this man and I have a genetic match, but I would feel better if I knew the source of the online pedigree I found.

Anyway, Family Finder is cool. I wish everyone would do it. At least the people who are already involved in genetic genealogy on the y-dna and/or mtDNA sides should do it.

I think I am on the verge of linking up with another Family Finder match. Of course, a lot depends upon whether I hear from this individual or not. Anyway, we are predicted by FTDNA to be 4th cousins. We share 38.31 cM of autosomal dna, with the longest block being 15.15 cM.

He and I share a surname in our surnames list, and if I am right, we share a 5th great grandfather on that line, which would make us 6th cousins. That's stretching back to a man born in 1723, but we share some dna somehow, and that looks like a firm connection.

Right now I am not sure of the source for the pedigree, since up until I saw this man's gedcom, I could not get this line beyond my 3rd great grandfather. I found the possible connection by searching pedigrees on the internet, to be quite honest. I'm thinking the information is probably pretty good, since this man and I have a genetic match, but I would feel better if I knew the source of the online pedigree I found.

Anyway, Family Finder is cool. I wish everyone would do it. At least the people who are already involved in genetic genealogy on the y-dna and/or mtDNA sides should do it.

I believe this discovery also nets me still another 5th or 6th cousin with the same surname in her list. We have been trying to figure out where the connection is for the last week or so. Now I think we have it.

I should hear from her even if I don't hear from the man I mentioned in my last post above.